Lily Luna: Fire Girl
by Break This Spell666
Summary: Lily Luna Potter always swore she would never get married (except to one boy); instead she just drank and smoked and partied to much. That is until Teddy sees her again in the pub.


She'll never get married she swears; never in a million years. ('Except to him,' she whispers as they turn away, and you hope that she doesn't mean what you think she does). So she burns through boys, charming a different one every week with a flip of her firefire hair and swing of her _ohso _small hips. She doesn't want a relationship, she says, just a little fun. She doesn't notice how you watch, wondering where your best friend went. She doesn't see how no one understands what happened to innocent, little Lily Luna, the fire girl, the girl whose best friend was eleven years older; and yeah, it should have been weird, but somehow she made it work. No one laughed at you for having a little kid (a girl no less) as your best friend, your first confident. No one sneered at Lily for not making friends her own age (until she reached fifteen and realize what boys can be for). Even then, she never had friends, just the flavor of the week- and sometimes multiple in one week. Everyone knew this was how she was. But she didn't just sleep around; she was a party girl. She drank too much, smoked too often and shouldn't have slept with three quarters of the boys that she did. But it was all okay, because little Lily Luna, the fiery girl, was never going to get married.

They first notice something isn't right the summer she turns seventeen. Her family plans to throw her a big party the evening of her birthday- like they did whenever one of the kids came of age- but she spends the entire day in her room, sulking. Everyone's arrived for the party and the guest of honor has gone AWOL.

"Lily? Where are you?" You call into her room.

"Go away." You had never gotten such a brusque response from (your) Lily. Not even that time you turned her hair gold and her skin red for week when she was twelve and Lily practically _bled_ green. "What did I do, Lily?" Your voice is soft; you see she almost wants to curl up in your lap like she did when she was little. But now she's pushing you away and you don't know why. (Well you think you have an idea, you just dearly hope you're wrong.)

"Nothing, Teddy. Go away, I need to get ready." So you leave and she gets her costume ready (complete with a true Slytherin mask blank of emotion). And when she descends the stairs in her tighttight dress (that's far too short) and her killer heels, with her firefire hair swinging behind her, every male jaw drops. Except yours; yours snaps shut and tightens.

"Lily," you hear her father hiss. "What are you wearing?"

"It's okay, Daddy," she smiles at him. "It'll be fine." She sways past him, knowing perfectly well how wrong she is. But she just smiles her dazzling smile and keeps her mask firmly in place.

She doesn't see you watching her; she's too busy smiling coyly at Scorpious Malfoy. You can't believe she would go after her cousin's boyfriend, but this new Lily doesn't seem to have any limits. (Then again, she once took after your habits, remember pretty boy?)

She finally comes over to you, wearing a smile only you can see through. "Hi Teddy," she greets.

"Lily, why are you doing this?"

"Doing what?" she murmurs.

Your eyes narrow. "You know what." You indicate to how she's dressed. "This, why are you doing this?"

"Don't you know?" Her voice takes an icy edge.

"No. Please, Lily, tell me," you plead.

"Don't you dare. This is _your_ fault!" Lily tosses her hair and turns away.

"Lily! Wait!" You grab her arm, not realizing how big a mistake that is.

"Let go of me, Teddy!" Everyone turns to stare as she screams at you. "You don't get to ask anything of me anymore. I am not _your_ Lily Luna anymore!" She looks around, noticing the aunts and uncles and cousins and friends that have all gathered around. "I think you should go," she whispers to you.

You know if you walk away, you'll never see her again. It doesn't matter, though, she hates you. She'll always hate you.

What did you think would happen? Did you think you'd get married and ride off into the sunset? You forgot, Lily Luna will never get married, not in a million years, and so you leave.

.z.

You stay away for three years, taking auror missions abroad, traveling; you even go chasing dragons for a summer, though you avoid the dragon fever. You don't see (your) Lily for three years. You try to fill the hole with different things, like Victorie (but that was _before_) but it never works; the hole still aches terribly for your little fire girl.

You see her again three years later, in a dim, smoky pub and you can practically _taste_ the cliché. She's sitting at the bar, pretty as ever and completely burned out. You slide into the seat next to her, morphing your features unrecognizable, and order yourself a firewhiskey.

"Costumes tell more about a person than any mask is able to hide," you say quietly, not looking at her. She doesn't answer, and you glance at her. She's staring straight ahead, wearing what you always called her 'Hidden Face'; it's as if she's hiding a broken heart and that's what pulls the boys in. "Although," you continue, "maybe the people in the masks don't want to actually hide. Maybe they do want people to know."

"I'm sorry, who are you, again?" She's working up to that glare that only Lily Luna Potter can manage; that glare that simultaneously makes you want to run away and kiss her (oops, that's just you, pretty boy).

"I'm nobody," you tell her. You see her eyes widen in recognition. Those words were the way to get past the wards she sometimes (always) put on her room.

"You've got a lot of nerve trying to act like you know anything about me," she hisses, and you know she's right. You haven't seen her in three years, and the last time you saw her, she broke you heart. And, yeah, maybe you broke hers, but that can't be your fault because she always burned through boys, so surely she's above heartbreak right?

"I do know you, Lily," you try to convince both of you. "I've always known you." She scoffs, but you ignore it. "Who did you always come running to when you were crying and hurt? Who always knew exactly what to say to make you smile, even when the world was a thunder cloud around you?"

"I haven't come running to you in a long time, Teddy. And I never will again. You left me." She sounds like she's on the edge of tears, but Lily Luna hasn't cried in years. Even though her eyes sparkle only because the spotlight she's under catches the unshed tears, she refuses to let them fall. She learned early that a crying girl isn't what people want- no they want a heartbreaker, not a heartbroken. And that's okay, because Lily Luna will always be the heartbreaker. "You left me, and I'll never forgive you."

Your heart falls because you know you deserve nothing less, and yet you hoped for so much more. "Lily," you start to plead. "Don't you understand? You were ten when I moved in with Victorie. I tried to still be your friend, but even then you started icing me out."

"And you left me. Even seven years later, even when you _knew_ that you would never work with Victoire- hell she was out of the picture- you _left_."

"You told me to," you try to justify, but you know it's hopeless. You should've fought for her.

"You knew I didn't want you to leave!" she shrieked. "You knew I loved-"

"No," you cut her off. "You can't love me."

"Why not?" Lily always did love a challenge.

"I'm eleven years older than you. What would your father say!?"

"I don't care what he would say. I don't give a fuck what anyone would say. It's not about them, it's about us. It's about what we want."

"I don't want you." The betrayal is clear on her face and the threads barely holding your heart together snap.

"You don't mean that," she whispers. "You can't mean that." The tears she's held onto for so long start to fall.

You harden your breaking heart even more. "I do mean it, Lily. We could never be together anyway."

"How the fuck can you say that after everything you've done?" You wince, wishing you could forget that very stupid mistake you made, but she's on a roll. "After all the lies you told everyone else, you expect me to believe that you've been lying to me all this time? You dare to even _try_?"

"That was a mistake. A very stupid mistake and you know it, Lily."

"'_A very stupid mistake_,'" she mocks. "Was it really not enjoyable, Teddy?" she purrs, and you squeeze your eyes shut, knowing that she knows what that is doing to you.

"That's not why it was a mistake, and you know it."

"Oh? Do I, now? That hardly seems right. I mean I can understand why you wouldn't find it enjoyable; after all, you were used to Victoire weren't you? And I'm sure she's the type to just lay there and-"

"Damnit Lily, stop!" you shout, knowing full well you probably just attracted the attention of every single person in the bar.

Her cat caught the canary grin means she knows just how deep you're in. Her eyes had dried as soon as the first tear fell. "So you did like it, and you do still want me." She places a gentle hand on your arm. "The only question is why do you refuse to admit you love me?"

"Damnit Lily, you know why. Maybe you can just forget about everyone else- hell you've always had that 'Screw what anyone thinks, I'm going to do what I want' mentality, but I can't. I respect your father far too much to not think about what he would say. Or do."

She tosses her fire hair again; seemingly unaware of how it draws the eyes of every male in the pub. "I don't understand why Daddy's respect means so much; he gives it out far too easily, as easily as his trust in fact. As for why I don't care, well I disappointed him a long time ago. I'm pretty sure he doesn't expect me to amount to anything and if I wasn't his daughter, he wouldn't give a shit about me."

You feel your mouth open slightly at the end of her matter-of-fact confession and stammer out: "Are you insane? Of course he cares about you! And why do you think he thinks you'll amount to nothing?"

"Let's see: yes; no, he doesn't; and have you heard anything about my reputation lately? I've slept with every boy in my year _and_ the two above; I drink and smoke with no limitation. You think those stories haven't gotten back to him? He just doesn't want to talk about; he thinks if he ignores it, it'll go away."

"And if you know it's so bad, then why do you do it?" you ask quietly, almost dreading the answer.

"Because it's fun," she says simply.

You goggle at her for a few seconds. "You do all of that- which you're convinced makes your father hate you- just because it's _fun_?"

"Why shouldn't I have fun in my life?" You're at a complete loss for words and Lily sees that. "Why don't you just fuck off Teddy; you don't understand anyway."

You try to respond again but you can't do anything but open and close your mouth like a fish. You never would've guessed your innocent Lily Luna would have grown up to be like this. Sure, she always had a wild side, and yeah, she never cared what anyone thought, but you never imagined she would grow up thinking her father didn't care and then intentionally provoke him into feeling that way. She's still staring at you, daring you to try to convince her of anything, and then you realize that she's right: you'll never understand. So, you get up and for a second time, you leave as she told you to.

You're halfway back to your flat- it really was complete chance you saw Lily tonight; you don't frequent that pub- when you realize that you don't want to go another three years without seeing your fire girl. So you turn around and are running back to the pub before you remember you could just apperate- _duh_- but when you get there, she's leaving with another guy. She's clinging to his arm, laughing at something he just said and the mystery guy is staring down at her, awe and lust written all over his face. Lily Luna can do so much better, so you step out of the shadow of the street lamp and announce as much. Her face closes off and she looks mad but you see the joy sparkling in her eyes. The mystery man stares at you, taking in your size and bright blue hair but hard, glittering eyes and knows he couldn't possibly win that fight- and god are you willing to fight for your fire girl. So he just walks away muttering something about not know she had a boyfriend and she says "I don't," but she looks at you in a way that says it's okay if you don't say forever because right here and right now is all that matters.

"Lily, I-" your throat closes up as she steps closer to you. "I'm-" you try again but she cuts you off.

"Teddy, oh Teddy, _shut up_," she whispers, leaning in close. "Just shut up and kiss me." And well, could you really say no to that kind of order? You close the millimeter gap between you and her and your lips meet and oh god, she tastes just like you remember. You realize _this_ is what you've been missing for three years; _this_ is what you should have never walked away from. "Let's go back to your place," your fire girl mummers against your lips. And you know that it probably isn't the best idea (again) but you nod wordlessly anyway, apperating both of you back to your flat- straight into your bedroom to be exact. Before either of you shake off the effects of the travel, clothes are flying off at an alarming rate and your tumbling into your bed. There's no pause, no awkwardness; it's like this is how you and (your) Lily Luna are meant to be.

.z.

You wake up in the morning the exact same way you did more than three years ago: Lily curled against you with her head on your chest and your arm wrapped around her. And for a moment, you tense, fighting the urge to quietly get up and get dressed and shake her awake to say it was a mistake (again) and you have to go. But you don't, because you need your fire girl, Lily Luna who doesn't care what her father will say when he finds out she's with his godson (who's eleven years older than her).

"Teddy?" Lily stirs and turns her face up towards you.

"Morning, beautiful," you whisper, not yet wanting to fully wake up and face reality.

She snorted. "You know how bad I look in the morning." She stretches her arms above her head, causing the sheets to ride further down her back. Your hand strays there, almost unconsciously, and traces circles and spirals across her smooth skin.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Fine, as long as you stop being all mushy romantic."

"Deal." You grin, then your face falls as you see how blissfully young she is. "Lily, what are we doing?"

She props herself up on her elbow, a smile playing on her face as she traces patterns on your bare chest. "It looks to me like we're waking up together after an amazing night."

"That's not what I meant," you say quietly. "How are we going to tell anyone?"

"Well," she pauses, and appears to actually be thinking her answer through. "I suppose we could just tell them over Sunday dinner."

You burst out laughing. "Oh, I can just see that. 'Oh, by the way Harry, I'm sleeping with your daughter. Pass the potatoes?' Yeah, that'll go over well."

"Ok, so not Sunday dinner. We could let him catch us in the act." She waggles her eyebrows suggestively and you frown. "Or not," she said, seeing your expression. "Ok I got it! How 'bout we tell him at the office? Then he knows, he can't make a scene, and if he attacks we're surrounded by trained aurors!"

You smile. "It sounds fool proof. Except one problem."

"What's that?"

"Those aurors answer to your father."

She laughed. "Oh, Teddy, that'd be no problem."

"How do you figure that?"

"Because they'll be having too much fun watching to actually attack us, but they wouldn't want their boss to get arrested so they'll stop him." She grinned. "Infallible logic."

You grin and shake your head. "You never cease to amuse me, Lily."

She raises an eyebrow. "I amuse you do I?" She leans over, keeping her lips just above yours while simultaneously inching her hand down your chest, over your stomach and getting closer and closer to the top of the bed sheet. "Still amusing?" she whispers just as her hand slips under the sheet and you groan a little.

"Lily,"

"Yes?" Now it's her voice bordering on laughter.

You spring into action, flipping her over and hovering above her. Her eyes flutter as you slide your hand down her side, wrapping it around her hip. "Still amused?"


End file.
